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Not as good as other LIVE colourants.

* Correct image is now showing, thanks Dooyoo :)

I colour my hair every few weeks and because of this, I think I have tried most of the products on the shelves over the years. Although I have one or two favourites, it is Clairol's hair colourants that I buy most often. However, hair dyes can often be found on promotional offers in both supermarkets and other stockists such as Boots and Superdrug and as I do like a bargain, I am often tempted away from Clairol if that brand is not on promotion too.

Schwarzkopf is a brand I have had a fair amount of experience of as I used to regularly purchase their 'Country Colours' range a good few years back. More recently I have purchased their 'LIVE Color XXL' when it has been on offer and found it also to be a good product, as well as it being one of my daughter's favourites too. Therefore when I spotted this 'LIVE Salon Style' hair colour on offer at my local Morrisons recently, I decided to give it a go. It was on a half-price promotion and so was priced at just £2.99 which is a great price for a permanent hair dye.

LIVE Salon Style promises to bring you professional hair colour for home use. It is a range of 20 sophisticated salon shades developed and tested for home use and Schwarzkopf state this high performance formula contains a professional colour-intense pigment mix that deeply penetrates hair to ensure an intense, long lasting, shiny colour result - with professional grey coverage.Enriched with a Nutri-Protect Complex, it rebuilds the hair from within and protects the hairs surface for healthy looking hair with strength and shine.

I chose the dark brown shade as my hair is naturally dark brown, but with increasing grey strands appearing! Apart from covering the dreaded grey, I do like the added vibrancy that colouring my hair provides. I sometimes experiment with dark red shades too, but on this occasion I stuck with dark brown.The preparation was simple. After putting on the gloves provided, squeeze the contents of the colour gel into the bottle of developing lotion and give it a good shake. Full instructions are provided, as well as information about carrying a strand test first, not only to test the colour but also to test if you are allergic to the product. The gloves were just the flimsy thin type which don't fit your hands snugly, but I didn't find this too much of a problem.

I personally prefer hair colourants which you apply to dry hair, as I find them so much easier and less time consuming, so I was pleased to discover that this dye is to be applied to dry, unwashed hair, just like the other LIVE products I have used.Starting at the roots, I began squeezing the contents onto my hair from the developing bottle which has a pointed nozzle to aid application. I prefer hair dyes to have a gel-like consistency as I find it makes applying hair dye easier, otherwise you can end up with the product running down your face and neck which can get quite messy and also stain your skin. Although this wasn't really the best consistency I have experienced, it did not run and was relatively easy to apply. The main thing I noticed which really pleased me, was that it actually had quite a nice fragrance, unlike the the strong peroxide-smelling LIVE XXL product I used a few months back.

After applying all of the product to my hair, I then piled my hair on top of my head and left it for 30 minutes, before rinsing it all off under the shower. I have long hair and it is often recommended that you purchase two packs but I usually find one is enough. I only need two if I am changing the colour of my hair, for instance if I am switching to red shades.You then apply the sachet of conditioner which is also included in the box, to your hair. I left it on for a couple of minutes before rinsing it off and was pleased with the feel of my hair after this. My fingers glided through my hair easily and the fragrance was quite nice too.I dried and styled my hair as usual and I was very happy with the results. The shade was a shiny dark brown and exactly what I wanted, as well as completely covering any grey.

My hair felt soft and silky smooth and I was more than happy with the results, but after a couple of weeks I was disappointed to notice that the intensity and colour had faded slightly. This was something which did not happen with the LIVE XXL dye and I thought this Salon Style product being advertised as 'salon professional' would mean I would have long-lasting results too. Another further two weeks down the line and I had noticed it had faded even more and so although I was initially pleased with this product, the fact the great colour it gave me has faded fairly quickly has put me off using it again. I certainly would not pay full price for this, I would say it is worth the £2.99 I paid but that would be the most I would be prepared to pay for this product. It is a shame as LIVE XXL is a great product and unfortunately this LIVE Salon Style falls way short of living up to the longer-lasting quality of its sister product in my opinion.

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A great hair colour from Schwarzkopf.

~ Schwarzkopf Live Salon Style ~

Having been using Garnier Nutrisse in Fiery Red I was dismayed to find that the little space on the shelf in Asda for this particular colour was empty!My hair was in dire need of a colour as my blonde roots were coming through and the colour had somewhat faded due to swimming and general fade!So I scanned the shelves in the hop of finding a good alternative and that is when I spotted this Live Salon Style hair colour. I have used it in the past but I was very happy with the colour I had but as I *needed* (wanted) hair dye there and then I popped the Live Salon Style into my trolley.

I chose the shade 5-29 Intense Red as this was the closest I thought to the Fiery Red and I had my fingers crossed for good results when I got around to using it.Previously I had used this colour but I went over brown hair, this time I would be going over red.

You get a slim box which has a picture on the front with a model showing the colour of the dye you have chosen, of course, in my case, red. The rest of the box has all the relevant information letting us know the brand - Schwarzkopf, the name of the product - Live Salon Style and the colour.The box is quite classy looking with it's simple black colouring and does actually stand out on the shelf amongst all the other brightly packaged hair colours.

There is quite a lot of choice when it comes to colours available. These are ~

In Asda they are priced at £5.48 each yet you may find it cheaper elsewhere.

In the box you will find an instruction leaflet, a pair of gloves, a sachet of Colour Lock-in Conditioner, application bottle with developer lotion and a tube of Caring Colour Cream.

If you are not familiar with home colouring kits you simply use the lid of the colour cream to pierce the tube, you then squeeze this into the application bottle which already contains the developer lotion and shake until mixed. The Intense Red shade will form a pinky coloured cream in the bottle which you then apply to your dry unwashed hair. *Wear the gloves*!

You should perform an allergy test before applying and the proceedure for this is all availble in the enclosed leaflet.

As the application bottle has a nozzle lid, it is quite easy to control and apply. I apply it to the whole of my hair then sit down with a cuppa and wait for the colour to develop, this takes about 25 - 30 minutes.When I looked in the mirror, even after five minutes I could see that the colour had started to take already and I was impressed with the brightness of it. I left it alone then until the development time was up and went upstairs to rinse it out. As soon as the water hit my head I had a waterfall of bright red flowing from my hair, the colour running off was quite intense and it took a while for the water to run (sort of) clear. I applied the conditioner supplied, gave it a minute or two and then rinsed that off. I wrapped my hair in a towel and went to dry it and sort it out!

Without looking in the mirror I turned my head upside down and proceeded to dry my hair with the hairdryer, once dry I looked in the mirror and was very impressed with the colour and also the glossiness of my hair. It was incredibly shiny and looked healthy and silky.

The Intense Red colour was intense and is just what I wanted it to be.

I am very impressed with the results and after having it for a week now I haven't experienced much, if any fade. I totally understand that red colours always fade a lot quicker than any other but even after having a daily wash my hair does still look very red.

~ Tip ~

If you happen to get hair dye on your head/shoulders/etc. rub over it with a little bit more hair dye as tint on tint will get rid of it.

Wet wipes are also quite effective.

Thanks for reading :o) x

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A vivid colour for the slightly more indidual appearance.

I am a bit of a novice with dying my hair. I had a dubious incident as a teenager, so I then didn't bother again till a few years ago when grey, or should I say white appeared, and I can't say I felt it made much of an improvement. However, in the last few months, the white hairs in my almost black hair have been making me feel old, so I quite impulsively decided to pick up a hair dye while doing my supermarket shopping to turn back the years.

Because my colouring is naturally quite dark, I have to go for darker shades, so I picked this dye up in the shade blue/black. The pack told me this was suitable for people with brown/dark brown/black hair. I opted for blue/black rather than black as I felt it might be a bit more striking and youthful.

The first thing I did when I got home was read the leaflet that came in the package. I am familiar with the fact that when you home dye you need to do an allergy test 48 hours before hand, so I did this. It was recommended to rub a small amount of the dye in a thin layer of about 1cm by 1cm on the inside of the elbow. I dutifily did this, and pretty much instantly I got a patch of blue/black that looked like an unfortunate bruise on my inner arm. After an hour I rinsed this off. It washed off easily, and as I had not reacted to this, I then waited the required 48 hours before I attempted the full dye job.

This dye kit consisted of a 50ml tube of colour which is like a toothpaste tube. You also get a 50ml bottle of developing lotion, and a 15ml sachet of colour care conditioner. You also get a pair of plastic disposable gloves to wear while beautifying yourself.

To start the home dye session, I prepared myself in the bathroom with an old towel, wearing an old vest top, and made sure the door was shut. I didn't want interupting mid session by the kids. I used some vaseline around my hairline to stop the dye staining my skin. (Wish I'd used more round the back of my neck and on the top of my ears, but that is a lesson I have now learned. ) I also set my kitchen timer to 30 minutes so I could time once my head was covered in the dye.

Prepping the dye involves mixing the contents of the dye tube with the developer lotion. It's easy to squeeze the contents into the bottle, then put the lid on, shake till its mixed well, and apply straight away to the hair.

This bottle was well designed. The dye came at a good speed out of the bottle so it only went onto my head and not all over the bathroom. Good start. I started massaging this into my hair using the provided gloves, but it was very hard as they were far too big for my medium sized hands. I think next time I tackle this at home I will buy some cheap washing up gloves and then bin them after as at least then I would be able to apply it as needed.

I managed to get the dye onto my hair, but to be honest it was mostly at the top of my head. I noticed that the back of my hair was still fairly normal coloured, so I used my hair brush to then comb it through my hair. I did this while leaning into the bath so it was a bit acrobatic for my liking, and somehow I still managed to avoid getting dye into the grout round the bath tiles.

I wish I'd read the leaflet better before starting, as it recommended for hair longer than chin length you need 2 bottles. I should really have done this as mine is shoulder length, but the top of my hair at least is fully covered, if perhaps not all of the underneath, so one was just about sufficient, but longer than shoulder length I would definitely buy two. If I had not brushed it through my hair to cover the bottom half, I would have had an embarassingly patchy end result.

The half hour wait was a bit of a pain as I couldn't really do anything. I found that my hair as it is long was draping itself onto my face, or my ears, or my neck, so I had a few times of having to quickly wash off the dye before it really stained, and luckily it did wipe off a bit. The rest removed with my make up cleanser at the end of the session.

After half an hour, this just needed making into a foam on my head like you would with shampoo by rubbing it, and as I washed the dye ran off down the plughole. I must admit to having removed the gloves by this stage so I just used my hand. A small error as I had a blue hand and nails all day like a pen had leaked on me but after completing normal chores like washing up and household cleaning, it was gone within the day.

The conditioner was the final step. Again I combed this through my hair, and 15ml was sufficient really for my hair length, and it was fairly non memorable in the smell department, but it has left my hair really shiny and soft so the colour has not left my hair rough or damaged looking.

The dye has done a reasonably good job on my hair. I really like the colour. It is more noticeable than when I dyed my hair straight black. My mum didn't even notice last time I did it, but she will be able to notice this one. It was thick enough to not make a huge mess in the bathroom, it was simple to use, and it did stain my skin but it did come off fairly easily.

Negatives for me was the smell and the gloves provided. The smell was really chemical. When I was applying it over the bath, I felt like I was having trouble breathing through the odour, and I do not have any trouble such as asthma. This dye has hydrogen peroxide in it, so if you do suffer with asthma I would suggest choosing a less potently smelling brand.

The gloves as I mentioned before were rubbish. Yes, they kept the worst of it off my hands when I was putting the dye on, but I took them off during developing time and couldn't get them back on.

I also have found that some hairs in my head look more blue than black. I can only presume that these hairs are the ones that were white to start with and they have only taken the blue shade and not the black. Not a huge deal at the minute as the white was really quite minimal. If I take my husband's word for it, it was a non-existant problem that only I took any notice of. However, if my hair was more white than black normally, I don't think blue streaks would have looked that good.

I will reserve judgement as to whether I would purchase this one again, as like I said earlier, the colour is unusual and quite lovely, and at £6 it was one of the cheaper branded products in the store, but the strong chemicals and funny coverage on white strands has left me a bit cautious of it. Perhaps it is best just for those wanting to have a stronger colour rather than full grey coverage, and I also need to consider I didn't use 2 bottles like was recommended, although by the time you buy two, you might as well go to a hairdressers in my opinion.

I'm still going to give it 4 stars as it covered well and was easy to use, but I am going to keep the few small negatives in my mind when I look next time for a product.

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A great hair dye - highly recommended, although be prepared for the awful, strong chemical scent

Schwarzkopf Live Salon Style Hair ColourI have been dying my hair at home for about three years now and I have had quite a few hair colours applied at the hairdresser but I find that these kits are easy to do and they are cheaper too!

- About the product

The hair dye kit comes with: one tube of the colour cream, one application bottle with the developer lotion inside, one sachet of the colour lock-in conditioner and the instruction leaflet and gloves. The tube of colour cream is 50ml as is the developer lotion. The conditioner is 15ml and I wish there was lot more in the sachet as I love the conditioners that come with hair dye kits, they leave my hair super soft, smooth and completely tangle free. This is a permanent hair dye (level 3) and you should do a allergy test before using this product.

The shade I bought is 5-1 light brown, this dye is recommended for individuals with dark blonde, light brown and medium brown hair. I have medium brown hair but I have a lot of red in it and also a couple of greys - and I am only 19! I think the greys must be due to stress as it has been really stressful over the past two months, so I just wanted to make my hair colour a bit more even and uniform, I didn't buy this product for a big hair colour change. I do love the red in my hair, of which there is a lot, but I wanted my hair to be a little bit darker and less warm toned as it is now fast approaching winter.

- Product description

"Do you want intense, long lasting hair colour like you get at the hairdresser? Live Salon Style is a brand new range of professional permanent hair colours that have been developed and tested for home use. Live Salon Style gives you professional colour confidence at home." Superdrug uk

- Preparation

Firstly, I brush my hair throughly as I find that the smoother my hair is before the application the smoother my hair will be when I am applying the hair dye and also when I am washing the dye out of my hair - it just makes the whole process a bit easier and less frustrating. I get all of the things that I need ready such as the contents of the hair dye kit, towels, a hair brush or comb and some large hair clips. I also make sure that the window is open in the bathroom as all of the hair dyes that I have tried have been very strong and chemical smelling, which is not very nice at all. I do not put a towel around my shoulders as I find that for me it always falls off and then I am trying to put it back around my shoulders which makes it get dye all over it.

- Using the hair colour

The first step is to empty the content of the colour tube into the developer bottle, this is then shaken throughly to make sure that the colour is well mixed together. I then put the gloves on which for me where really big, so I had to put a bobble around my wrist so that the gloves did not slip around as much and also so that the gloves didn't slip off and expose the eczema on my hand to the hair dye. I then started applying the colour using the nozzle dispenser, which is really good for concentrating the due where you need it, so it would be great if you just wanted to touch up your roots or if you had short hair. I applied a line of the hair colour down my usual side(ish) parting and then I created another parting and I applied the colour again along the length of the parting. I found that with the gloves on it was really difficult to part my hair so that I could apply the colour to my roots, so I ended up just dispensing the dye in my hands and then distributing the colour over my hair that way. I found this way of applying the colour quite easy, although it is a bit harder to make sure that the colour is distributed completely evenly using my slap the colour on and hope for the best approach. I was not worried too much about getting every strand of my hair covered as the hair dye itself was very similar to my hair colour anyway - I just wanted to darken my hair slightly and reduce the red tones for auntumn/winter.

Overall, I found that the application process was not difficult at all, surprisingly. The hair colour has a smooth texture so it does apply quite easily and I found that my method of applying the dye was a really quick way of applying the colour all over my hair - covering all my hair well. The only part of the application, apart from the difficulty parting my hair with the gloves on, was that the hair dye smells really horrible - it is a very toxic, chemical smell that is very strong. The strength of the scent reiterates my point about keeping a window open while applying the hair dye, as I found it horrible to breathe in the scent.

After all of the dye was applied I tried it up in a bun with three bobbles, to make sure it would not fall out, which was a little bit difficult to do with the gloves on. I then had to wait for the allocated 30 minutes before washing it out of my hair. During the waiting time I cleaned up the bathroom which did not take long at all and I did get some dye on the white sink but it surprisingly came off with some cotton wool soaked in water. I also cleaned up the excess dye that had gone onto my skin. I found that with this dye I did no get as much of it on my skin this time, I think that the cream/lotion hair dyes are so much easier to use and are less messy than mousse hair dyes. I did get some dye on my hairline and neck but I just removed it very shortly after applying the hair dye with my lush 9 to 5 cleanser and a cotton ad sprayed with water. I also find that bio oil is fantastic at removing hair dye from the skin and my aunties hair dye removal with milk does not seem to work very well with this dye.

- Washing that dye right out of my hair

After the thirty minutes I carefully removed the bobbles and during the time that the hair dye was in I had no irritation at all - usually with all hair dyes that I use I get a little bit of itchiness or a very slight warming sensation on my scalp but I didn't get any reaction at all with this hair dye. So, I read that instruction which said to rinse the dye out until the water runs clear and with my hair it only took a little bit less than 10 minutes or so to rinse all of the dye from my hair. I was quite surprised at how my hair felt during and after I rinsed the dye out, my hair felt really smooth and completely detangled despite being kept in a messy, tangled bun for half an hour. The instruction at this point then say to apply the condition, it does not say whether you should shampoo your hair after rinsing so I didn't and applied the conditioner from the sachet.

The instructions do not suggest how much conditioner to use, so I use a little over half of the sachet, so about 8ml of conditioner. I immediately notice that the conditioner smells divine, it is the best smelling conditioner ever! The conditioner smells fruity and floral and sweet, which is one of my favorite scent combinations. The conditioner has a smooth consistency and it applies quite nicely, although it is not the nicest conditioner I have used and I overall I was a bit disappointed by the conditioner. It smells really nice but I had to use quite a lot, it did not feel like it is was really conditioning and it didn't make my hair so smooth and soft as other conditioners - I much prefer the conditioner you get in the nice and easy hair colour kits.

After I have applied the conditioner my hair does feel quite smooth and tangle free, while waiting for the two minutes for the conditioner to sink in, I massaged the conditioner into my hair which released the gorgeous scent again. The conditioner rinsed out quickly and easily and it did left the scent in my hair but not very strongly. While my hair was wet it felt very smooth and tangle free so it was easy to brush through, now for the all important results...

- Results

The hair colour did turn out quite well as it did slightly darken my hair and make my hair colour more even, which is what I wanted from the hair dye but it did not get rid of a lot of the red in my hair, which I was a little surprised at because the image on the front of the box and the images of the potential results on the back of the box look quite ashy and do not look red at all - so I would say that the images on the box are not very accurate, in my case anyway, which is a little bit disappointing as I wanted to lose some of the red. But that said, I do actually like the new colour as it is slightly darker, it looks natural, the dye has covered up the couple of stress grey hairs that I had and it also made my hair look and feel very healthy, shiny, well-conditioned and glossy, which is great.

- Overall positives

The overall positives in my opinion are as follows: the hair dye instructions are easy to follows and they are very clear but they do miss out some information, such as how much conditioner to use and if you should shampoo your hair. The hair dye was easy to apply and I did not get a lot of the dye on my skin, although parting my hair with the gloves on was near impossible so I ended up just rubbing the colour into my hair. The nozzle on the bottle allows for a controlled application (but this method did not work in my case as I have really long hair). The dye did not irritate my skin or scalp at all, the dye was very easy to wash out and it made my hair feel very smooth and completely tangle free. The conditioner smells really nice and I can still smell the conditioner on my hair.

- Overall negatives

The overall negatives in my opinion are as follows: the dye smells just awful, it is a horrible chemical, toxic scent and the smell is very strong - so as I mentioned in the preparation section of the review, that you should have a window open while using this product. Also the gloves were quite big and made it very difficult to part my hair. The conditioner was not very good, it did detangle my hair and it smells nice but it was nowhere near as conditioning as other conditioners with hair dye have been in other kits I have used. The images on the box are not very accurate in my opinion as on the images and the swatches on the back, the dye does not look red at all but it is slightly red in my hair - either that or it has not covered my original hair colour.

- Would I buy this hair colour again and would I recommend it to others?

I would recommend this hair dye as it was really easy to apply (apart from the very strong scent), it is quite cheap and one bottle contains quite a lot of dye. I would recommend this dye to others but I would buy a shade close to your natural hair colour as for me the result of this dye did not look very much like the colours shown on the box.

- Price and availability

I bought this dye a few weeks ago from Superdrug for £4.99 I think but it is now priced at £3.99 in Superdrug (all prices as of the 30/10/2011). This hair dye can also be bought from the following:

Amazon: £4.80Tesco and Boots: £5.99Wilkinsons: £5.29

Conclusions

Positives

* Surprisingly easy to apply and it washes out so well * It leaves my hair shiny, glossy and healthy looking * The kit is cheap and quite widely available * The conditioner smells so nice and it does detangle my hair and makes my hair so much easier to manage and brush through * The dye worked fairly well * The scent of the conditioner stays in my hair for a day afterwards

Negatives

* The results on my hair did not really look very similar to the image on the box * The smell of the dye is horrible - it is very strong and it smells like chemicals

Thank you for reading my review - this review is also posted on ciao under my username labellavita1992